Horsegirl Cover The Minutemen

Photo by Carlos Lowenstein

Not enough bands cover The Minutemen. The San Pedro, CA 80's punk legends are one of the most influential bands of all time, but I can't remember the last time I heard a band cover one of their songs. Since Horsegirl's Versions of Modern Performance is one of my favorite albums of the year, I was thrilled to see they released a cover of "History Lesson Part 2" off 1984's iconic Double Nickels on the Dime. It's one of the more mellow and groovy songs in the Minutemen's catalog, and Horsegirl don't stray very far from the original. Although, if anything, Horsegirl's version is just a tiny bit more noisy. But it's made me a bigger Horsegirl fan, and I'll be listening to Double Nickels on the Dime for the foreseeable future, so it definitely did its job.

The band says of the cover:

“‘History Lesson Part 2’ has always been a punk manifesto for us. It was an unusual pick to cover considering the lyrics are so specific to Minutemen, but we thought there was something appealing too about recording a 'History Lesson' that doesn’t actually give you any history on us."

You can listen to Hosegirl's take on "History Lesson Part 2" below. For more on Horsegirl, check out the artist's website.